WIFE

Mary  b. Abt. 1617

CHILDREN

1. Mary Bearse
    b. bef. 16 Aug 1640
    d. 6 May 1643

2. Martha Bearse
    b. bef. 06 May 1642
    d. 6 May 1643

3. Priscilla Bearse
    b. 10 March 1643
    m. 1660 John Hall
    d. 30 Mar 1712

4. Sarah Bearse
    b. 28 March 1646
    m. Aug 1667 John Hamblen
    d. 30 Mar 1712

5. Abigail Bearse
    b. 18 Dec 1647
    m. 12 Apr 1670 Allen Nichols
    d. Aft. 1 Apr 1689

6. Hannah Bearse
    b. 16 Nov 1649
    d. Abt. 1719

7. Joseph Bearse
    b. 25 Jan 1650?/1
    m. 3 Dec 1676 Martha Taylor  

8. Hester Bearse
    b. 02 Oct 1653

9. Lydia Bearse
    b. Sep 1655

10. Rebecca Bearse
    b. Sep 1657
    m. Feb 1670/1 William Hunter

11. James Bearse
    b. Jul 1660
    d. 7 Oct 1728

Augustine Bearse
by Susan Brooke
March 2023

Austin or Augustine Bearse came over in the Confidence in 1638 from Southampton, aged 20, and became a member of Mr. Lothrop's church on 29 Apr 1643. (1)  His wife was named Mary and she joined the church 7 Aug 1750.  However, they must have married about the first year of his arrival in the colonies and there is no record of this marriage. 
Augustine and his wife Mary had 11 children as recorded in the Barnstable Town Records.  The wife of one his grandsons supposedly kept a diary in which she wrote that Mary was a Wampanoag Princess, the daughter of John Hyanno. (2)  However, none of this can be proven and is doubted as being true by many genealogists.

Sources

(1) American Genealogist Vol XV  114
by Donald Lines Jacobus, 1938

A strange story was given circulation in the Utah Genealogical Magazine, July 1935 (vol. 26, pp. 99-100), concerning the wife of Austin Bearse, as follows:

The evidence as to the identity of the wife of Austin Bearse is found in an unpublished manuscript, entitled: "Who Our Forefathers Really Were. A True Narrative of Our White and Indian Ancestors," by Franklin Ele-watum Bearse (a Scaticoke and Eastern Indian). This manuscript is a certified copy of an original sworn statement now on file in the office of the Litchfield County District Court, in Connecticut , and accepted by the State Commissioner in Charge of Indian Rights and Claims as an authentic and legal declaration of lineage. It bases its claim as to the identity of Austin Bearse's wife upon statements in the original diary of Zerviah Newcomb, who married Josiah Bearse, a grandson of Austin, and who wrote from personal knowledge of the facts . Her diary is called, "A True Chronicle of the Bearse Family." It is said that the above manuscript is deposited in the Congressional Library, and states that Austin Bearse married by Indian rites at the Mattachee Indian village Mary, daughter of John Hyanno, a Mattachee Sagamore, and son of the Sachem lhyannough who befriended the Pilgrims on their first arrival. In Zerviah Newcomb's diary Austin Bearse was said to be of the Romany or Gypsy race, and the name was originally Be Arce. He belonged to a family of Continental gypsies who had emigrated to England. There was great persecution; for some minor infraction of the English law Austin was deported to the colonies. On arriving at Plymouth, Austin was the only prisoner allotted to Barnstable . No Puritan girl at that time would marry a gypsy, as there were eligible Puritans to select from. It was therefore natural that he should marry an Indian Princess. Further it is said that Mary Hyanno was a lovely flaming-haired Mattachee princess.

"On the contrary, he came to Barnstable with the first company in 1639; he became a member of Mr. Lothrop's church, 29 Apr. 1643, and he is the first person named on the present record of those who joined the church after its removal to Barnstable, He was proposed to be admitted a freeman, 3 June 1652, and was admitted 3 May following. He was called Goodman in the records, bespeaking his good standing. He was a grand juror in 1653 and 1662, and a surveyor of highways in 1674. To quote “Barnstable Families”-(1888) by Amos Otis (vol., 1, pp. 52, 5 3), "He appears to have been very exact in the performance of his religious duties, causing his children to be baptized on the Sabbath next following the day of their birth....... .... He was one of the very few against whom no complaint was ever made; a fact which speaks well for his character as a man and a citizen." The wife of "Brother Berce" joined the church, 7 Aug. 1650 [New Eng. Hist. and Gen. Register , vol. 9, p. 281]. To suppose that a Gypsy, a deported criminal, and the husband of an Indian, would have enjoyed such standing in a Puritan community is absurd."

. 

(2) Rumors about Augustine Bearse

, having been deported for being a Romany (gypsy) on English soil. He supposedly was from the Heron or Herne tribe. When he arrived in Puritan Massachusetts, the white girls would have nothing to do with him, so he married an Indian Princess, Mary Hyanno. Mary was a Wampanoag Princess, the daughter of John Hyanno and granddaughter of Ihyannough, Sachem of all the Cape tribes. At the time of the marriage some of the best land in Barnstable County was ceded verbally to the couple. Supposedly the marriage was a factor in the peace between the Cape tribes and the English.
Mary Hyanno is said to have been of fair complexion and red hair. The Wampanoag were often referred to as "white Indians" due to their light skin and are believed to have descended from Viking explorers.
Both Austin and Mary joined the church in 1643 and lead an exemplary life. "It is said that he was one of the few residents against whom no complaints were ever filed."

In the History of Barnstable County by Deyo, "several historians have discussed the Norwegian claim to its discovery. Eric emigrated from Iceland to Greenland, where he formed a settlement in 986. In the year 1000, Lief, a son of Eric, with a crew of men, sailed to the southwest, discovered land, explored the coast southward, entered a bay where he remained during the winter, and called it Vinland. In 1007 Thorfinn sailed from Greenland to Vinland, and the account of his voyage is still extant. From the evidence of this voyage and others that followed, antiquarians have no hesitancy in pronouncing this Vinland as the head of Narragansett bay."

The story about Mary Hyanno and Augustine Bearse came from a 1935 publication based on a diary of a wife of his grandson.  Some or all of it may be untrue.